Posts Tagged ‘3D Printing’

Public transports and private cars cannot often cover all the distance we need to do every day. So which is the best transport to do the last mile ? See some alternatives:

bicycles and folding bicycles. Too heavy and uncomfortable to load and unload into cars, undergrounds and buses. We can’t arrive in office tired and sweaty too.

(folding) e-bicycles. Same as above. No tired and sweaty problem here but they are too expensive , prices are 500€-1000€

electric skateboards. They are light and fit very well to carry them in underground buses and cars. They are expensive yet (around 1000€) and only some young people fit well with them.

I thing the best solution is doing a good e-scooter. Actual e-scooters are too heavy with lead-technology batteries or are too expensive (1000€) because of too many components, but it could instead be:

right for all people because of easy skill required

easy to carry into all kind of private/public transport

can cost under 200€ choosing the right build pattern

First two points are already done, see how reach the third.

Basic scooters weighing less than six kilograms, with wheels size of 20cm or more can be found on Amazon around 40€-60€ . In Italy, e-bicycles cannot have no more then 250W power motor. So this could be a sample configuration:

a programmable board to manage the device: a Leonardo Arduino (5-10€ ) on ebay

a bluetooth module to communicate between arduino and our smartphone, used as device control interface): HC-05 (5€ on ebay)

All the components costs 53€ plus 50€ for the scooter on amazon we are on 100€ . Then we have to consider the mechanical components. We need a chain or a belt for trasmission and some gears to transfer the power from the motor to the rear wheel. Gears and pulleys can be easy modeled with OpenSCAD and then 3D printed. All the components can reach 120-150 € so we are on target.

This is a complete first prototype:

This prototype cannot carry none because of insufficient power trasmission between motor and wheel. The belt slet on gears when someone ride the scooter. So the real problem to solve, only because of my skill absence, is the power trasmission modelling and mechanical realization. I posted all detail here so someone can succeed where I failed.